The Importance of Knowledge

2 Peter 1:3-4 – As His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

God has already provided all that we need for life and godliness, all things we need for our spiritual lives as well as our natural, earthly lives.

How do we partake of it? Since He  has given us everything we need through the knowledge of Him, the more knowledge of Him we have, the more of the “things” He has provided we will live in and enjoy.  If we want to live in more, we will need to increase our knowledge.

We don’t pray for God to do for us what He has already done; we pray for wisdom and understanding so that we may know it and live in it. But we do more than pray for understanding. It if also of utmost importance that we study God’s Word for ourselves in order to gain knowledge of what God has provided. We must also listen to God called, God anointed teachers because without them, we can’t grow up into all we are made to be.

What we live in and enjoy of what God has provided is limited by our knowledge of it. We can only live in what we know. We can only prosper to the degree our souls prosper. We can only live in the perfect will of God to the degree our minds are renewed to know it and apply it. We can live like God only to the degree that we THINK like God.

Mark 4:22-24 (amp) – Things are hidden temporarily only as a means to revelation.  For there is nothing hidden except to be revealed, nor is anything kept secret except in order that it may be made known.  If any man has ears to hear, let him be listening and let him perceive and comprehend.   And He said to them, be careful what you are hearing.  The measure [of thought and study] you give [to the truth you hear] will be the measure [of virtue and knowledge] that comes back to you—and more [besides] will be given to you who hear.

2 Timothy 2:15 – Study and be eager and do your utmost (be diligent) to present yourself to God approved, a workman who has no cause to be ashamed, correctly analyzing and accurately dividing [rightly handling and skillfully teaching] the Word of Truth.

Be diligent in the word.  Continue to study it.  Be diligent to fill your heart with the Word.  What is in your heart will control your life.

It is all based on a measure.  And it isn’t a measure set by God.  You determine the measure of blessing in your life.  You determine the degree of the knowledge of God in your life.  It is up to you!  It is up to you not God how far you go in life, how much you grow in the knowledge of God, how much wisdom you gain and how much you prosper.

He has given us all His word.  Through this Word, we partake of His promises and His nature. But the measure of time in thought and study you give it will be the amount of wisdom and knowledge that come to you and in return, it will be the amount your soul prospers, and that will be how much you actually prosper and have success in life.

John 8:31-32 – If you continue in my Word, then you are truly disciples of mine, and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.

The Bible says that you shall know the truth and the truth will make you free.  It doesn’t say that the truth will set you free.  It is only truth that you know that will make your free.  Truth is here whether you know it or not.  Redemption is available whether you know it or not, but you will only experience it to the degree you know it.

I don’t study just to learn facts and doctrines.  I feed on the Words of God and take them into my being where they become my strength and ability to live them.  They become a part of my actual being.  I renew my mind, and God’s truth replaces the old thoughts and ways – which as it takes hold in my heart makes me free and transforms my life into His image  – and enables me to do the things that become part of me. The Word of God is the power of God unto my salvation.  It enters my heart and becomes a part of me and gives me strength to do it. (Romans 1:16-17)

I change my thinking to God’s ways of thinking. I think on His Word day and night rather than on natural, human, earthly thoughts. Only to the degree I think like God will I prosper (Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1:2-3).

Ignorance is No Excuse

You can have great zeal. Your heart can be right. But if you don’t learn God’s ways of doing things and conform to them, you won’t enjoy the things of God.

Your life can be destroyed by your lack of knowledge. If you don’t do things God’s way, you can’t get His results.  You must do things in God’s way to receive God’s blessings.  You must submit to God’s way of righteousness and to God’s way in everything.  You must seek Him according to knowledge.

Ignorance is no excuse.  Seek and find out the truth for yourself. Pray for wisdom and understanding. Study the word of God diligently. Change your thoughts to His thoughts and let His ways become your ways.

Romans 9:30-32 – What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone.

Romans 10:1-3 – Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.  For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.  For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.

Hosea 4:1, 6 – Hear the Word of the Lord… for the Lord has an indictment against the inhabitants of the land.  There is no faithfulness or loyalty, and no knowledge of God in the land… My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge… (Isaiah 5:13)

1 Chronicles 15:13 – Because you did not carry it at the first, the Lord our God made an outburst on us, for we did not seek Him according to the ordinance.

You may not know His way or what He requires and have been taught He requires things He doesn’t and doesn’t require things He does, but still if you don’t do it His way, you will fall short of what is necessary and fall short in results too – regardless of how right your heart is.  So eliminate your ignorance.  Get to know the Word.  Get to know God through His Word.

You can have great zeal and put much diligence doing what you know to do and still miss out on God’s best.  Diligence is good, but must be aimed in the right direction.

Paul’s Prayers for the Church for Wisdom and Knowledge

These New Testament prayers express God’s will for us.  We need to pray scripturally.  Things that were written in the Bible are for a purpose.  The prayers of Paul are in the Bible because they are necessary.  In them is the answer to our victory and effective Christian lives.  These prayers will make a difference.  They will change lives.

A prayer for wisdom and revelation is a very important prayer because God has already provided everything we need.  What is it that keeps people from living in it?  Their own amount wisdom and revelation. If we partake of the promises of God through knowledge, knowledge of God is the key to living in God’s provisions.

Ephesians 1:17-20;  Colossians 1:9-11

I pray asking that the God of my Lord Jesus Christ, my glorious Father may give to me:

The spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God – so that I might know Him better, that the eyes of my heart be enlightened to know:

• The hope to which He has called.
• The riches of His glorious inheritance for me and in me.
• His incomparably, surpassing great power toward me when I believe.

I pray, asking God to fill me with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

• So that I may live worthy of the Lord.
• That I may please Him in every way.
• That I may bear fruit in every good work.
• That I may increase in the knowledge of God,

Old Testament Prayer for wisdom (Proverbs 2: 1-7)

If you:

• Accept and receive my words.
• Store up and treasure my commands within you.
• Turn your ear and make it attentive to wisdom.
• Apply your heart to understanding.
• Call out and cry for insight.
• Lift your voice for understanding.
• Seek her as silver.
• Search as for hidden treasure.

Then:

• You will understand and discern the fear of the Lord.
• You will find the knowledge of God.

For the Lord gives wisdom and from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.  He stores up wisdom and victory for the upright.

I receive His words and treasure His commandments within  me, I make my ear attentive to wisdom and incline my heart to understanding, I cry for insight and raise my voice for understanding, I seek wisdom as silver and search as for hidden treasure – so I will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.  For the Lord gives wisdom…

Then my life is transformed and I prosper in all I do!

I seek the Lord for myself, but I also need to listen to God anointed, God gifted and inspired teachers. God has placed these gifts in the Body of Christ for a purpose, that we might grow into the fullness of who we are to be. If we are missing receiving from the teaching gifts God has placed in the body, we are missing a necessary part of our spiritual growth.

We can get away from the knowledge of God and not even know it. There can be a lack of peace we don’t know the answers to, disturbances and afflictions and other such things – and the only reason for it be a lack of knowledge of the truth.

2 Chronicles 15:3-5 – For many days Israel was without the true God and without a teaching priest and without law. But in their distress they turned to the Lord God of Israel, and they sought Him, and He let them find Him. In those times there was no peace to him who went out or to him who came in, for many disturbances afflicted all the inhabitants of the lands.

Ephesians 4:11-16 – And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.